The Lived Experiences of Queer* Teachers in İstanbul within the Scope of Institutionalized Heteronormativity and Neoliberal School Policies

Even though the challenges that Queer* employees face in the workplace because of their intersecting identities of gender, sexuality, race, and class continue to be one of the rarely studied topics in social sciences, there has been a resurgence of interest in recent years, concerning how Queer* teachers experience the conflation of their sexual and professional identities. Informed by the recognition that schools are one of the most representative prototypes of gendered organizations with their ever-adapting regimes of inequality, this study is motivated by the question of how Queer* teachers in İstanbul deal with the enduring institutionalized homophobia, which has only got worse in terms of its silencing and pathologizing mechanisms. Claiming one of the fundamental functions of schools to establish strictly heteronormative spaces of learning, where any form of gender nonconformity or sexual dissidence stands before disciplinary punishment or reprimand from other students and teachers, I have examined the current working conditions of Queer* teachers in İstanbul within the contexts of schools, which compel Queer* teachers to abide by their institutionalized rules and norms of compulsory heterosexuality. This study attempts to learn what kind of experiences Queer* teachers in İstanbul articulate regarding the conundrum of being forced into presenting themselves as non-sexualized and non-gendered professional figures, as neoliberal policies and capitalist expectations of a rigid separation between professional identities and personal lives of workers continue to negatively affect the occupational well-being of Queer* teachers. A careful analysis of the interviews has revealed that the Queer* teachers in İstanbul are burdened with the aesthetic labor they are constantly expected to perform due to the emergent neoliberal schemes of professionalism and that they suffer under closely monitoring mechanisms of heteronormative school policies and work climates.

Genome-Wide Linkage and Association Study of Childhood Gender Nonconformity in Males

Male sexual orientation is influenced by environmental and complex genetic factors. Childhood gender nonconformity (CGN) is one of the strongest correlates of homosexuality with substantial familiality. We studied brothers in families with two or more homosexual brothers (409 concordant sibling pairs in 384 families, as well as their heterosexual brothers), who self-recalled their CGN. To map loci for CGN, we conducted a genome-wide linkage scan (GWLS) using SNP genotypes. The strongest linkage peaks, each with significant or suggestive two-point LOD scores and multipoint LOD score support, were on chromosomes 5q31 (maximum two-point LOD = 4.45), 6q12 (maximum two-point LOD = 3.64), 7q33 (maximum two-point LOD = 3.09), and 8q24 (maximum two-point LOD = 3.67), with the latter not overlapping with previously reported strongest linkage region for male sexual orientation on pericentromeric chromosome 8. Family-based association analyses were used to identify associated variants in the linkage regions, with a cluster of SNPs (minimum association p = 1.3 × 10–8) found at the 5q31 linkage peak. Genome-wide, clusters of multiple SNPs in the 10–6 to 10–8p-value range were found at chromosomes 5p13, 5q31, 7q32, 8p22, and 10q23, highlighting glutamate-related genes. This is the first reported GWLS and genome-wide association study on CGN. Further increasing genetic knowledge about CGN and its relationships to male sexual orientation should help advance our understanding of the biology of these associated traits.

Governing Nonconformity: Gender Presentation, Public Space, and the City in New Order Indonesia

The regulation of public space is generative of new approaches to gender nonconformity. In 1968 in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, a group of people who identified as wadam—a new term made by combining parts of Indonesian words denoting “femininity” and “masculinity”—made a claim to the city's governor that they had the right to appear in public space. This article illustrates the paradoxical achievement of obtaining recognition on terms constituted through public nuisance regulations governing access to and movement through space. The origins and diffuse effects of recognition achieved by those who identified as wadam and, a decade later, waria facilitated the partial recognition of a status that was legal but nonconforming. This possibility emerged out of city-level innovations and historical conceptualizations of the body in Indonesia. Attending to the way that gender nonconformity was folded into existing methods of codifying space at the scale of the city reflects a broader anxiety over who can enter public space and on what basis. Considering a concern for struggles to contend with nonconformity on spatial grounds at the level of the city encourages an alternative perspective on the emergence of gender and sexual morality as a definitive feature of national belonging in Indonesia and elsewhere.

Gender Dysphoria in Psychiatric Practice: Understanding the Clinical Ambiguity and Management

There have been several myths and misconceptions about the dichotomous understanding of sex and gender. While sex is biologically determined, gender and gender identity depend on childhood experiences, upbringing, social expectations, beliefs, family environment, and peer interactions and is socially constructed. Gender dysphoria (GD) is the extreme distress experienced by an individual because of a mismatch between their gender identity and the sex assigned at birth. GD has been an ambiguous category in psychiatry, initially termed as “gender identity disorder” till Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition ( DSM-5) considered removal of the term “disorder” to reduce the stigma associated. The critical element in GD is “clinically significant distress” that differentiates it from gender nonconformity. Individuals with GD identify themselves as transgender and frequently are victims of coercive social norms, discrimination, and stigma. This leads to delay in expression of distress, psychiatric mismanagement, and high comorbidity of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, self-harm, and suicidality. Though management involves a holistic multidisciplinary approach including psychotherapy, social support, and gender-reassignment treatments (medical/surgical), there has been considerable debate and ambiguity related to the same. With this background, the article critics the understanding of GD, focuses on the WPATH SOC-7 treatment guidelines, and highlights the role of mental health professionals for better care.

Differences in digit ratios between gay men who prefer receptive versus insertive sex roles indicate a role for prenatal androgen

Among non-human mammals, exposure to androgens during critical periods of development leads to gynephilia (attraction to females), whereas the absence or low levels of prenatal androgens leads to androphilia (attraction to males). However, in humans, retrospective markers of prenatal androgens have only been associated with gynephilia among women, but not with androphilia among men. Here, we asked whether an indirect indication of prenatal androgen exposure, 2D:4D, differs between subsets of gay men delineated by anal sex role (ASR). ASR was used as a proxy for subgroups because ASR groups tend to differ in other measures affected by brain sexual differentiation, such as gender conformity. First, we replicated the finding that gay men with a receptive ASR preference (bottoms) report greater gender nonconformity (GNC) compared to gay men with an insertive ASR preference (tops). We then found that Tops have a lower (male-typical) average right-hand digit ratio than Bottoms, and that among all gay men the right-hand 2D:4D correlated with GNC, indicating that a higher (female-typical) 2D:4D is associated with increased GNC. Differences were found between non-exclusive and exclusive same-sex attraction and GNC, and ASR group differences on digit ratios do not reach significance when all non-heterosexual men are included in the analyses, suggesting greater heterogeneity in the development of non-exclusive same-sex sexual orientations. Overall, results support a role for prenatal androgens, as approximated by digit ratios, in influencing the sexual orientation and GNC of a subset of gay men.

Autistic Disruptions, Trans Temporalities

The desire for transgender futures has grown exponentially in recent years, but many of these futures are traps, concealing a demand to assume normative and neoliberal priorities in exchange for citizenship and belonging. This article argues that some of these traps might be undone through autistic disruption. Dwelling with the life writing and memoir of individuals both autistic and trans, it suggests that, by choice or by circumstance, autistic-trans narratives defy the chrononormative mandate of the able-minded future. By claiming autism and gender nonconformity as mutually inclusive, foregrounding alternative sensorealities, and interrupting the incitement to get better, this article argues that cripping trans time through autistic disruption offers what Gossett, Stanley, and Burton call a “trap door”: a route of escape from the normate trans future and a way for autistic life to insist on its own continuation and survivance.

Gender Nonconformity and Minority Stress Among Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Individuals: A Meta-Analytic Review

Lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals are less healthy than heterosexual individuals, and minority stress endured by LGB individuals contributes to these health disparities. However, within-groups differences in minority stress experiences among LGB individuals remain underexplored. Individuals are more likely to be categorized as LGB if they exhibit gender nonconformity, so gender nonconformity could influence concealability of sexual orientation among LGB individuals, carrying important implications for the visibility of their stigmatized sexual orientation identity and for how they experience and cope with minority stress. Through a meta-analytic review, we examined how gender nonconformity was associated with minority stress experiences among LGB individuals. Thirty-seven eligible studies were identified and included in analyses. Results indicate gender nonconformity is associated with experiencing more prejudice events, less concealment of sexual orientation, lower internalized homonegativity, and higher expectations of rejection related to sexual orientation among LGB individuals. Gender nonconformity is more strongly associated with experiencing prejudice events among gay and bisexual men than among lesbian and bisexual women. Gender nonconformity is systematically associated with minority stress experiences among LGB individuals, and future research must measure and examine gender nonconformity when investigating the role of minority stress in degraded health outcomes among LGB populations.